Hello there, Glenn Scrivener from the Speak Life Podcast. Have you noticed that the world's gone a little bit bonkers? Just a little bit. There is madness on college campuses, there is madness on the streets, and there is scandal in the churches. And today we're going to think about which is worse: rioting on the streets or scandal in the churches. I'm going to be talking to Doug Ponder, who is the teaching pastor of Remnant Church in Richmond, Virginia. And we're going to be discussing the fact that scandal in the church is worse than even rioting on the streets. It's worse than even madness in the world. As Romans chapter 2 says, God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of God's people. I'm going to be talking to Doug Ponder about all these issues with uh the law, the prophets, and the apostles in mind. I uh loved my time talking to Doug Ponder, and I hope you enjoy listening in. I've benefited from following you on uh on Twitter, Doug, and um I thought you you came out with a tremendous um Twitter thread um just the other day uh looking at some of the the issues that are going on. Uh you call it the insanity in America. Those are your words, Doug, not mine. Um insanity in uh America. And I thought maybe um if I can figure out how to share screen, we we can have a look at this dynamite thread. And what I want to what I want you to do is um talk us through um um is it really like this, really? And uh why is it that your thread takes the shape that it does? Um and so for the sake of of viewers, um let me share the screen. Here it is. Um you say, I have friends who teach in major universities where their professor peers cast spells in class and during faculty meetings where they headhunt anyone who refuses to display preferred pronouns, and where they talk openly about aborting babies after they are born, and saying all this with a straight face. Um, really? This this this happens?
SPEAKER_00Right, and it's actually about to get even worse, it's slightly more unbelievable. That was one of the primary questions someone asked uh on the thread. They they said this doesn't sound real. This sounds like the kind of thing that the Romans said about Christians uh on the outside looking in. You guys are eating a person, your cannibals. Uh, but yeah, this is actually uh three friends that I talked with. Uh two are at the same university, and one is at a second university. I checked with them to confirm uh these are stories from them, uh, and they are all uh trustworthy people of integrity who um I trust implicitly. And uh they're not they they're not liars, and they're not the kind of men who share these stories uh publicly for obvious reasons, for fear of losing their own jobs. I redacted their names and their universities from the thread so that they wouldn't, there would not be a threat to them. Um but unfortunately, these are these are true stories uh coming from some of America's most prestigious uh universities.
SPEAKER_01Right. And I mean, we we all became more and more privy to insanity on campuses um across the US, and some of that sort of leaked um over the pond uh here to the UK as well. Um but there there was kind of almost a sense, well, well, that's died down, and you know, people kind of have their brief moments on campus and then they grow up. Um but I guess we're seeing that um they grow, they they do grow up and they do leave uh the campus, and uh sometimes they they take some of this stuff with them. Um your thread goes on. Um there are places where students dress in bloody lingerie, they water cult rituals where people show up naked to class for a quote art project, where they sit in a pentagram and require the class to read from a book that attempts to summon their ancestors. There are places where people believe that humans can be trans species and that refusing to regard them as an animal is violence against them. There are places where homoerotic videos frequently verging on paedophilia are routinely shown in class as art. There are places where white students have been chained to their desks for class presentations as a kind of demonstration and/or reparation for enslaving people of color. On top of all this, there are places where the profs have no control, where they are literally incapable of doing their jobs, as critical feedback is basically outlawed, and any attempt at correction is frequently met with profanity-laden outbursts or accusations of racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, take your pick. My goodness, there are the sort of students and recent graduates in the streets, these are the sort of students and recent graduates in the streets now, tearing things down, burning things up, accosting innocent bystanders, attacking police officers and civilians alike, destroying small businesses, including black-owned businesses, in the name of justice. Do you see a link between um what's being taught in universities and the kind of violence we're seeing on the streets at the moment?
SPEAKER_00Certainly. And again, I want to stress that um while all of these incidents are true, I have no doubt that they are not ubiquitous in the sense of every single classroom is like this. That's absurd. But what we are seeing is that the Overton window and what is acceptable, what is normal, has continued to shift over time. So that what would have been cutting edge and avant-garde uh 50 years ago is now passe. And so what now seems cutting edge and avant-garde, we have good reason to expect that in 20 years, maybe 10 years, maybe five years, at the rate that culture seems to turn over in the age of the internet and smartphones, will be normalized. And you're already beginning to see this TED talks that are trying to justify and normalize um pedophilia as a kind of sexual orientation. So this uh this sounds like a screed against culture, the same kind of thing that maybe causes a visceral reaction from people who are used to hearing folks uh wag their finger at the state of the world and bemoan what things are coming to. And yeah, there's a temptation, I think, to say, uh, well, every generation says this. And there's a sense in which that's true about immaturity. Every generation bemoans the generation that comes after them when they are immature. But it's just a poor read of history to say that the sins of every subsequent generation are exactly identical and no greater, no lesser than those who came before them. Uh, and so I think what we're seeing here is a connection between the kind of ideas that have been espoused for many decades now about um everything from what kind of things are good and should be pursued and what kind of things are evil and should be shunned. Uh it used to be the case, I'm old enough to remember, in the 90s, when um we were worried about relativism, and that's still around, certainly, but now uh we see a very definite shape of morality taking place among certain factions of the world. They have very clear ideas of what they think is right and wrong. They're just incredibly out of step, perhaps, with what the scriptures teach, and therefore they go at this with an even more zeal than the relativists in the 90s who said, I don't really know if it's wrong to do such and such. And you know, the way to deal with that person was to maybe do the thing they said wasn't wrong and see if it bothered them. But now we enter in a place where, yeah, folks are connecting the dots and saying, now I believe these things that you're teaching me, and I'm going to act on them. And uh yeah, it's quite a frightening thing to watch it all unfold.
SPEAKER_01It used to be the case, I think, that um Christians would teach that as a society gets further and further from the scriptures, it will become more and more immoral or amoral. Um, but I think what we're finding is is that they're they are incredibly moral, um just moral with a very different sort of center of gravity, or orbiting around much different kinds of truth claims.
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And and would you would you characterize some of this? I don't know what we're gonna call it, uh intersectionality, I don't know, um this postmodernism, the Marxism, whatever whatever we're gonna sort of label this. Um, would you would you see a religious dimension to it?
SPEAKER_00Oh, without question. Uh I mean, fundamentally, yeah, everything, uh ever every every person is religious, of course, and uh it's not only the default mode of the human heart, uh, but uh culture is religion externalized. I forget who first said that, but that's profoundly true. So when you look at any culture at any given point, um, you can tell what things they believe and more importantly, what things they emphasize, the things that they value. And that gives you a good strong sense of what the religious framework is for that people. And so when we are watching folks who are saying outrageous things and doing outrageous things, there's part of us I think that's tempted to say, well, that's not who they are. But maybe it would be better if we took them seriously and said, no, this really is. This is an accurate uh portrayal, presentation, uh reflection of what they care most deeply about and the way that they understand that the world ought to go. And they are going at it with the kind of zeal and fanaticism that in our in Western minds you might have associated with uh certain fundamentalist branches of Islam, perhaps. But we're now seeing that that same sort of moralistic zeal can exist on the far left as well, in the midst of uh profound secularism, agnosticism, atheism, uh lack of religion, generic spirituality, uh, whatever. It would seem that the human part is capable of taking any system and moralizing it and infusing it with a self-righteous zeal that becomes quite destructive in its path. Right, right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, a very, a very helpful analysis there. And uh we're not yet we're not yet done uh with uh have having a look at some of the evils that are out there beyond the church walls. But uh watch watch out for the way that Doug actually uh pulls this around and uh turns turns the guns uh in perhaps an unexpected direction. But um we're up to tweet number seven here in this thread, this blistering thread. Uh Doug continues, there are wicked, lawless, and pagan, in many cases, literally so. Um sorry, they are wicked, lawless, and pagan in many cases literally so. Their conduct shows they don't know the first thing about justice or morality or beauty or truth. Every day they are proving the point that the anger of man cannot produce the righteousness of God. James chapter 1, verse 20. They make me fear for my professor friends who may unfairly lose their jobs and their reputation, for my black and brown friends who will be accused and may be attacked by vigilante types on the alt right, for my church who ministers in the former capital of the Confederacy, and for my family and those like us whose mission in life is to love God, love neighbor, and be left alone. And for my children, who may have to live in this brave new world that the present evil generation is building with their futile thinking and darkened hearts. And it's like the Apostle Paul, we've we've kind of we've we've plumbed a depth in one sense, um, but in another sense, um here here is where Doug's thread is is really heading um with the capital word however, however, we move into tweet number 10. In spite of all this, I still fear that from the vantage point of eternity, the blasphemy and hypocrisy of the right in the name of Christianity may prove to have been uh more harmful to the cause of Christ than all the brutality, insanity, and anti-Christian hostility of the left. Whoa. Tweet 11. After all, the early church weathered great hostility and persecution from others, but her own hypocrisy and corruption later created problems that still have not been resolved. And if hypocrisy within is worse than hostility without, then we may be our own worst enemies. Therefore, if you are a Christian, I urge you not to settle for the lesser of two evils in the hope of doing good. Rather, look for people and organizations that are sufficiently righteous to justify your support. Let us act faithfully and let God take care of the rest. Goodness me. Are you serious? Are you serious, Doug? That actually, from the vantage point of eternity, the hypocrisy of the right in the name of Christianity may prove to have been more harmful to the cause of Christ than all the brutality and hostility of the left.
SPEAKER_00That's certainly my fear. Yeah. There's no way I can know that here with my incredibly limited vantage point. However, um there is enough of an emphasis in the scriptures on getting the affairs of your own house in order, taking the log out of your eye before you look to the speck in your brother's, and and many other places besides, that caution us against the kind of criticism, outward-facing criticism, against demonstrably wicked uh hostility against all people, the church included, without first taking a look at the stones that we have refused to turn over in our own house. And you know, there's an infantile version of this argument, I think, that would wrongly suppose that I've just said we have to be perfect before we can speak to the issues of others. And that's far from what I'm saying. We just need to be consistent. Built into the very framework of Jesus' law for us is the notion of repentance, which assumes we're going to get a lot wrong. And so there is no need for perfection, just a need for consistency to call a spade a spade, if it's outside the walls of the church or within, so that the whole witness that we are presenting to the world is one uh where we say Jesus is Lord of all things, uh, even here, even over his people, uh, who need this same savior that we are trying to hold forth to you.
SPEAKER_01So it's not that you are a centrist and you just you you know you you want to play the game, I'm above it all, I'm above party politics. And it's both signs, isn't it? And you you're not you're not just doing a bit of punditry like that. There's there are some deep convictions to what it is that that you're saying, aren't there?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I I think that what you bring up, one of the more common um accusations that I hear leveled, not just against me, certainly, but in the in the wider world of um the internet, that um folks who bring criticisms of both sides are perhaps just uh spineless centrists who refuse to take strong stances. But um that's that's far I can't speak for all people, but I'll speak for myself. That's far from um the path I am attempting to walk. And if that were the path I were walking, I'm not doing a good job of it because it doesn't win friends and influence people to tell folks on both in a two-party system like America has to look both ways and say, I see profound problems here. Uh and I think another version of the argument, maybe a more mature one, is that that I must mean that that I must insist that there's some kind of moral equivalence, that both sides are equally wrong to the same degree. And that doesn't have to be true for us to have a prophetic word for both communities. Uh if my neighbor is stealing $10,000 and my wife steals $1,000, I need to address both of those problems, even if one of them is tenfold greater. And to only address the one and not address the other would be a profound example of the kind of inconsistency I'm talking about. And it would be right for someone to charge me of hypocrisy, favoritism, and so forth if I'm refusing to deal with the sins in my own house, even if they were for the sake of the argument, possibly lesser or less harmful uh than the sins of another person.
SPEAKER_01That's very helpful. Um so as you're as you're thinking about aspects of of hypocrisy in in modern Christian American life, what are the sorts of things that are coming to mind?
SPEAKER_00Oh goodness. I didn't how long of a segment do we have today? Yeah. That's unfortunate, isn't it? That we can even say that and people kind of can chuckle and know that there are enough things like that to talk about. Um certainly there have been many issues on the global scale. I'll just start with some personal ones. I grew up in a church that um was one of the largest in the state uh that I live in in the state of Virginia. It also was disproportionately large relative to the hometown uh that I grew up in. I grew up in a small city of about 15,000 people and a church of over a thousand members. So one in 15 people in this hometown would have been part of this church. And um, my entire city was created through some of the worst examples of uh redlining. Um, for those who may not be in the US, not familiar with that uh terminology, um, when the US finally got around to uh beginning to overturn the legal segregation of African Americans in our country, uh, one of the things they were slow to do was forced forced uh integration in public schools. And the moment that they said, no, we're not gonna allow for segregation in public schools anymore, uh, a great number of white families with means would seek to move to other places. And to prevent uh black families from doing the same, as these cities were beginning to crumble and be left with nothing but poor infrastructure and great pockets of poverty, any black family of means that tried to move out would often be denied loans by banks or they would be lied to by realtors who told them different prices for different homes. So, what that created in my hometown was a city that was 97% white, and the 3% that wasn't white was mostly an Asian minority group, and next to a black city that was 98% black. So unbelievably stark contrast. They're right next to each other, just profound levels of inequality, and it was all created through these known systems. And yet, I never once in my entire uh you know decade plus experience in this church heard a single sermon that addressed the image of God on matters of racism. And I can tell you dozens of sermons that address the image of God on the matter of abortion. And abortion is a horrible evil, and it and it must be talked about. But to only talk about that and to never talk about the other is again an example of the kind of deliberate overlooking of the sins of our own house. And this is just a microcosm, I think, of what you've seen across the board. Uh, that's just one example, the sins of racism and how we failed to redress, uh, address those uh in our in the church. It's been very slow to get around to that. And that's just one. I heard sermons uh railing against homosexuality, but I never heard sermons about greed. Uh, and if anything, Jesus talked a great deal more about money than he did sexuality. No one would accuse our Lord of not caring about those two. He just knew his audience. And it seems like sometimes we forget our audience. We preach the kind of sermons that rail against the sins outside that perhaps we don't struggle with to the same degree, and we let ourselves off the hook for the things that might be more tempting and troubling uh on the inside, so to speak.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And in in the last week, uh we've had sort of three examples, which um, in fact, I I got an email from a non-Christian friend who lives uh in the same town as me here in Eastbourne, and um and he he said to me, Are you going to disavow Jerry Forwell Jr.? Um and it was just fascinating to me because like here we are both in the UK, and I'm from Australia, and like I've never I've never listened to like a single thing that Jerry Forwell Sr. said, let alone Jerry Forwell Jr. I know not, and yet there is this, you know, there is this, I guess, evangelicalism kind of industrial complex um that that sweeps people up in its in its wake. And in that, in that kind of uh complex, Jerry Forwell Jr. um uh had a very public kind of sex scandal. We can we can talk about that because you you were a um uh a graduate of of Liberty University. Um but in in that same week there was also Eric Mataxis, um, who threw a punch at a guy who was who was very much being provocative, but but then said nothing about it, doubled down on it, and a number of his friends doubled down on it as well. Um and and then there was Mike Pence at the um Republican National Convention, um, kind of riffing on Hebrews chapter 12, and instead of um speaking of Jesus, he instead spoke of Old Glory, uh, another name for the US flag. Um so you know it's on the tip of my tongue. What is it when you swap out the name of Jesus and put something else in its place? There's this this um idolatry or that's the one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I don't know if you've seen the uh uh works of art that probably are blasphemous, so I won't I won't screen share and show you one, but people are replacing uh famous uh Renaissance works of Jesus and putting old glory and in its place. Yeah, it's pretty rough, it's pretty rough. But I think maybe the uh the on the comedic side of things it demonstrates the creativity of the world, and on the other side it demonstrates the tragedy of the very thing that you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01Right. And what bring what comes to mind then is actually Romans 2, which is quoting from Isaiah, which says, Um, God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, people of God. Um and the blasphemy of the name of God among the nations is definitely a problem. Um, it's just that in the scriptures the the finger then points at God's own people as the cause of the blasphemy that's out there in the world. Um but perhaps we could zero in on the on the Jerry Falwell case, because I think um Karen Swallow prior um made a a great case for saying um don't be caught up in the sex side of the scandal. Um what we what we see there in in that leadership issue is an abuse of power. Does that resonate with with how you think about the issue?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's a great way. Of talking about it, we would probably prefer to reduce it to sex because we think perhaps that's something we could keep a lid on. Although we've proven that we're not very good at keeping a lid on that either. But maybe in our minds that is a safer uh area that we could blame this problem on and just write someone else off as a sexual deviant and say, ah, but I'm not that way, that won't be me. Uh it's far more dangerous, I think, if we recognize this could be anyone. And in fact, maybe it would be everyone, if they were, if they gave themselves the same level of unchecked um power without any sort of uh structures of uh accountability and uh ability to speak into your life and correct you. And you know, I'll just say uh I graduated, I was the last graduating class of Jerry Falwell Sr. And he was an interesting man, a mixed bag of uh he did a tremendous amount of good, and he did some things that were not so good. Uh and uh those who knew him best, even his critics, had uh much to say that they preferred that would be different, um, but they had a harder time accusing him of being a hypocrite because he was a man of uh uh of integrity and uh his his son unfortunately didn't walk in the same path. He began to consolidate power while he was there, uh, left a trail that's been for years building in the same direction. He fired journalists uh who uh at his school in the student paper whenever they would run an article that would say anything that was contrary to um even just an opinion that he held personally. They didn't even have to mention his name. If he just didn't like it, he was sort of cutting it out, almost Orwellian style control. Um, then he later just canceled the whole paper when the staff said, you can't just fire these people. This is the whole point of the press. Uh and uh I read the articles in question. They were far from the kind of um arrogant, insubordinate, bite the hand that feeds you stuff that you might think, well, I kind of understand that. I wouldn't want my own kids doing that sort of thing. It was really pretty tame stuff. Uh it was more marketplace of ideas. Is it is it okay for us to question the morality of someone like Trump and whether Christians should really be supporting him? And uh he decided, no, you can't even run a paper that says maybe we should be asking this question. So that was what Foot first first put on my radar that uh perhaps perhaps Jerry Jr. uh is walking down a road that's not going to end in a good place. And as these stories began to mount, um and we came out with this big scandal last week, I have to say I was deeply saddened, but probably not at all surprised uh to discover that what we saw was just the tip of the iceberg, and that that same kind of years of unchecked power without any accountability at all would uh corrupt a person and place them in positions uh where they would do acts of evil that maybe otherwise they would not have done.
SPEAKER_01And what do you think that does both on a personal level for for those, you know, perhaps other Liberty students or Liberty graduates or those who are in the orbits of Jerry Forwell Jr., what does it do for those personally caught up in the scandal? And what do you think it does more broadly for evangelical witness in the States?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, those personally caught up in it, if you're speaking about Liberty grads like myself or even my wife, uh, she said she was shocked how many of her friends and fellow graduates came out and felt compelled that they had to say something. So you mentioned being caught up in the wake of this, even as an Australian transplant to the UK. Here you have a UK uh friend you said was an agnostic or an atheist who's asking you about this man. Are you going to disavow him? Well, just imagine. I I live two hours from Liberty University. I went there. So you better believe I have uh friends, my wife is likewise wondering what do you think about this? And it's tricky because if you are a person who has decided to be uh less frequent with your public denunciations of all that's going on in the world, I feel like that would take up all of your time if you wanted to let the world know what you think about all things. If that's your general approach to life, which is where my wife is at, I think she pretty much just posts pictures of our four boys and goofing off with them. Yeah, people can accuse you though of saying your silence is an endorsement. You clearly support this man. That's where we've gotten, that things are so bad. And this kind of ignoring the affairs of our own house has gone on for long enough that uh people don't know that whether or not you you really are okay with that. There's enough, there's been enough of the Christian faith that's been chipped away at that it isn't a question. I it it maybe would have been a question 50 years ago of saying, well, I I that happened, but I know that they're not about that because I've I've heard what they're about. But now it's I'm not really sure what they're about. Maybe they are okay with this. And what do they really think? And maybe their silence is some kind of tacit approval. And um, so I think a lot of people have been caught up in this because of the high-profile nature of uh of who it who it was, and certainly the polarized nature of his support for a president has been more polarizing than any we've ever had in history. And there's a lot of uh variables here. It's kind of difficult, I think, to parse it all out. Um, and maybe we're still gonna witness some of what the fallout will be.
SPEAKER_01Well, we're halfway through. If we were playing a game of footy, we'd be switching ends and uh we'd be taking a breather right now, eating the oranges, getting ready to kick with the breeze in the second half. But uh, as we get ready for that second half, I want to get you excited about something that's happening in the autumn here at Speak Life. It's a series called Reset. We're going back to the beginning. Using Genesis chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4, we're gonna look at the big issues of life, like meaning, like purpose, like morality, like sex, like death, like beauty, like story, like God. And we're gonna be asking the question: can we go back to the beginning? Can we hit the reset button? Because as many people have pointed out, the story in the West has run out. The secular story has led us into confusion. So is the way backwards? Well, we seem to think so, and we're gonna work backwards from Genesis 4 all the way back to In the Beginning God. We've got some incredible guests on this series called Reset. We've got Douglas Murray, author of The Madness of Crowns, we've got Tom Holland, author of Dominion, we've got Miroslav Wolf to talk to, we've got uh Professor John Lennox and many others besides. We're going to be talking to Christians and non-Christians alike about whether the founding Origins story of the West can still speak today. If you don't already subscribe to our YouTube channel, then you will miss out on uh these videos. So I just urge you to go across to youtube.com slash speaklifemedia. That's our channel there. Give it a subscribe and click the bell, and then you'll get each of these videos in your feed. And if you want to be kept up to date with all the stuff that's happening at Speak Life, go to speaklife.org.uk slash sign up. That's S-I-G-N-U-P, and you can sign up to our emails there. Anyway, back to Doug Ponder and uh many of his wise insights. Should we go back into the scriptures and have a look at um kind of some of the theological foundations here in Genesis 12? Here we have, you know, Abraham is an Iraqi in Iraq, plucked out of idolatry and and called to be this founder of a new nation. And here is the Abrahamic blessing from Genesis 12, verse 2. The Lord had said to Abram, Go from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. And I think that's that's so pivotal for our understanding. Um, just because you know, the specialness of God's people is not in spite of the world or apart from the world, but the specialness of God's people is meant to be for the sake of the world. Um, does that kind of shape your kind of understanding of a mission theology?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, without question. I remember first stumbling upon um Christopher Wright's The Mission of God in Seminary. And when that book dropped, all of my professors began reading it, and some of them updated their syllabi in the middle of the semester to try to incorporate it. They thought it was that significant, that important. Uh, it was a beautiful book, and I remember he makes much of Genesis 12. I think the central idea was that God blessed Abraham in order that he might be a blessing. Uh, and that resonates deeply with me in how I think we ought to think about the one of the callings of the church. Certainly, is to make disciples, but disciples who do what? What are people for? Is the question I like to ask. Uh, so it's not just enough to ask what's the mission of the church. We also have to ask, well, why are people here in the first place anyway? And what are we making disciples for? Uh, we're making disciples in Matthew 28 to fulfill Genesis 1.28. Our disciples are meant to be the kind of blessing that God enabled, I mean, at first created us to be uh in the very beginning.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. And to have dominion and rule the earth. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of go into all nations, be fruitful and multiply. You know, the the overlapping of Matthew 28 and Genesis 1 is fascinating, isn't it? Um, that it it is a kind of a to the ends of the earth kind of love that is meant to overflow to the nations rather than to be an enclave apart from the nations living for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um literally filling the earth and subduing it, filling it with what? More things, more people who recognize the goodness of God and long for others to come see the same, hold it for uh forth for them. And had Adam and Eve been um successful in this endeavor and not deviated from their task, had not fallen and they're not trusting God, they they would have populated the world with worshippers of God who filled the earth with glorious things. And um what's fascinating is on the other side of the fall, that that doesn't change. What changes is our ability to do it. And so God incorporates a group of people and commissions them to go and do that with his help. And of course, they over time fail in this task as well. And so then Jesus, the true vine, comes in, fulfills this for us, and then creates this new community and says, and here's the task I give to you. Go and make the kind of people who can actually do the sorts of things that I created all of humanity to do in the first place, which is to receive the blessing from God and then to fill the world with more people who rejoice in their creator and who make things, glorious things that are a blessing to others, and and that that kind of goodness uh spreads to everybody that way. Right, right.
SPEAKER_01And therefore, if you know Abraham and the people of Abraham are meant to be a conduit of the global blessings that are meant to flow out to the nations, then if the nations are not being blessed, then the first the first people that really need to look at themselves are the people of God themselves. Yeah. If if the flow is not happening, then the first blockage you need to look at is um in the people of God themselves. Um and uh the next verse I've got up here um really is uh this this sense of uh Deuteronomy 7. Um the Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you are more numerous than other people. For you're the fewest of all peoples, but it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath, he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And I I I love in that one um this idea that you know Deuteronomy is is the second giving of the law. That's what the name Deuteronomy kind of means. But before the people of God are meant to be the stewards of this good law, they are to remember that they were saved from out of slavery, from being utterly powerless. And why were they saved from being utterly powerless? Not because they were so good as to become stewards of this law, uh, but purely uh by grace alone, purely because of the the the Lord's own love and affections. So, I mean, the very fact that you're able to do a cultural analysis of the nations, um, again, is by grace alone. Um, you know, we've we've been given a good law by which to to view the world, um, but not because we ourselves um are so good as to have come up with it or live under it even. Absolutely, we've been graciously saved for it.
SPEAKER_00And doesn't that remind you of the Deuteronomy 7 passage that you just read of uh C.S. Lewis's famous analogy that of a sun, uh the sun and the greenhouse, and the greenhouse isn't, doesn't attract the sun's light because it's warm. It's warm because the sun shines on it. And in a similar way, God doesn't love us because we're good, he loves us in order to make us good. And uh and so 1 Peter 2 uh similarly says, Once we were not a people, but now we are a people. And once we had not no we had no mercy, but now God has shown us mercy so that we could do what? Take forth this glorious message of having been called out of darkness. So there really is darkness in the world. But if I'm not in it anymore, it's only because God's mercy called me out of darkness for the sake of proclaiming the glory of his marvelous light, so that other people could know about the excellencies of this God who actually doesn't just curse the darkness but has stepped into it and it couldn't overcome him, and he's done something glorious about it. Uh, and so there's a sense in which you're exactly right. Uh it in any kind of cultural criticism has to be done in the same with the same mercy and compassion that the Lord Himself showed, a place like Nineveh, where he looks on them and says, I will destroy Nineveh for the evil they're doing if they don't turn. But also, he says, shouldn't I have compassion on them? They don't even know they're right from their left. Not because they're stupid, but morally speaking, how else could you know if we believe the doctrine of total depravity? How else could someone know right from wrong? Our consciences all what does Paul say? They alternately uh uh confirm and then also conflict with us. And so we have this moral compass that's so terribly broken uh that it doesn't even, it's not even like a broken clock that's right twice a day. It might be right twice in a lifetime. And so the good news of God that comes to us and shows us what is right, not so then we can just walk in the path, but shows us what is right so that we can see our need for what Jesus alone has done, call us out of that darkness so we can keep telling everybody about that marvelous life, which is great.
SPEAKER_01Right. But Jonah is a great example of a good religious guy, right? Who, let's face it, was a bit of a racist. Let's be honest, you know, he he he wanted he wanted Nineveh to burn. Uh he was he was even you know he was even miffed that uh God would actually do what he said he would do uh and save the nation. Now I you know we we have great hope that that you know Jonah had some repentance because otherwise why why would he tell the story later uh if he hadn't himself you know repented of that? But it's just fascinating that the the so the story ends with the religious guy um being I you know being outraged that God would be that gracious to the nations.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think he is um just a fascinating case study in uh for many reasons. You brought up one of them. We wouldn't probably know his story, uh, or the portion of Jonah that's written in the first person, uh Jonah chapter two, uh, that poem that he wrote. I don't think he concocted it in the middle of the belly of the great fish. Uh he didn't have anything to write with, I'm sure. Uh it wouldn't have survived the journey as he graciously and supernaturally did. But what does he do is he writes this later and incorporates it into a book. And it's so it's so significant that in this book that he either wrote himself or or told someone so that they could write it, he deliberately finishes the book with him in a place of judgment, even if he, as a person in history, later repented and and was willing to share the story. And that's significant because canonically the way that book functions is it says, hey, Israel, don't forget this God of mercy who's made you a people wants to make the whole world uh uh uh his people. And therefore, if you don't take the mercy that you've been shown to them, you don't understand the mercy that you've been shown. And what we get when we turn the page in the book of the 12, which I mean, as you know, was was put together as one corpus to be read as one unit. What are we? And how does Micah one begin? Judgment on the house of Judah and Israel. So it's fascinating because canonically we get this story of a guy who is a hypocrite, he's he's angry with God for being merciful and compassionate, and then we see the judgment that's going to fall in Israel, and it leaves you in a place where you're thinking, well, if the nations are going to be judged and Israel's going to be judged, what's going to be our hope? And if you wait, read all the way to Micah 5, you're going to read about this guy whose coming is from ancient of days. He's going to shepherd his people, he's going to make things right, and you have hope by the time you finish the book. Right, right.
SPEAKER_01The one from Bethlehem. Yes. Exactly. And and that that's the next thing I wanted to have a look at is the way that the prophets tend to do this, because your your your your tweet thread very much reminded me about what the prophets are so often doing in their oracles against the nations. They they begin by talking about, you know, the world, the nasty world out there, but then they they always end up by saying, and if you think those guys are bad, um you should check out the people of God. Um so uh for those, if you're listening on the podcast, I'll I'll have to explain it for you. But um I've got a slide where the general religious idea, um, the the more traditional idea is to think that there's the house of God, the nice people like you and me, and then there's them over there, the worlds, and they are they are the nasty individuals. But what you see again and again in the prophets um is that actually judgment, it's not that judgment goes on the world over there and we're kept safe over here, it's that judgment is for the house of God. And we might get to uh a verse in 1 Peter that says exactly that judgment begins with the house of God and then you know travels out to the world. But what you get, as you said, Doug, is in Micah chapter 5, Jesus, well, he is the great temple, he is the great house of God, he is Israel, um, and he comes and he embodies Israel. And what does he do at the head of his people? He takes the judgment on himself and then rises up again to become a place of refuge. And Jesus, who is the house of God, becomes the temple, the safe place, the refuge. And then what is the world? Well, the world is invited into that house of God, um, into the one safe place. The one safe place is the place that has already been judged. And on the cross, Christ took those curses that we might be invited into his blessings. So it's not so much the house of God gets the salvation and the world over there gets zapped. It's far more that judgment, nobody escapes judgment, not even the Son of God escapes judgment. He takes it on himself, rises up again to be the great temple, the great refuge, and the whole world is invited in uh to be a part of that that saved people of God. I think that that gives you a very, a very different idea of uh of judgment and salvation, Doug.
SPEAKER_00That's beautiful. I love that. It's a fantastic illustration. I think too, uh Don Carson preached a sermon on um Exodus and the Passover and pointed out that that same judgment would have fallen on Israel had they not been spared. And the judgment still fell. It fell on a lamb in their place. Um so we have that same theme of God's universal judgment against all sin. And the only possible escape is that someone else would step forward and take the judgment that we deserve, so that we can invite others into that same safe place, as you mentioned, uh, which is just a beautiful example of how this theme echoes throughout scripture.
SPEAKER_01And I love I love in Amos chapter three, isn't it so weird? Um, the the Lord, after doing a whole bunch of oracles, you know, Amos does some oracles about the nations that are surrounding Israel. And then the Lord is speaking in Amos 3, verse 2, speaking to the people of God, you only have I chosen of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you for all your sins. Is that the way you thought the verse was gonna go? Right.
SPEAKER_00That's a great point. Uh that doesn't make any sense unless you believe something like Hebrews 12, that God disciplines those he loves because they are his sons. Uh, not to turn them into sons. I'm going to divinely uh you know spank you until until you turn your ways around. But rather, I'm going to pursue you and chasten you precisely because you you ought to know better. I think about that uh that scene in the uh uh Lord of the Rings film, the adaptation of the book. Uh and uh remember Tree Beard, the ant, he's so angry with Saruman the wizard, uh, and because he's traveling down and sees all the destruction he's done, and he has this famous line he says, a wizard should know better. That's the kind of anger I think about when I see people who claim the name of Jesus doing all kinds of stupid things and evil things, even. I I just uh I want to guard myself against self-righteousness while at the same time holding the church to a higher standard, as I think the scriptures do, in fact, do. And and and that's that scene kind of explains a little bit of where that angst comes from. A wizard should know better. Right. You're not a wizard of your own making. You you you were called out of darkness and into marvelous light. You've been shown the oracles of God, Romans 2. You have you have the very things that show you what is right from wrong. You know the power of sin. So wouldn't you be even more careful? Wouldn't you be even more concerned about defaming the name of Jesus and taking the Lord's name in vain by claiming to be one of his followers and living just like the pagans? Uh where is that? A wizard should know better. And uh, I think about that theme often.
SPEAKER_01Wow, wow. Uh let's let's get on to uh 1 Peter 4, which is the the very first scripture that I thought of when I when I read your your tweet thread. And it's just so interesting to um to begin in verse 12. Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. And and obviously the religious spirit is constantly surprised at fiery trials because using using the phrase, you know. Religious in its negative sense. The religious spirit says, if I'm obedient, life will go well. If I'm disobedient, then life will go poorly. And so we're we're often blindsided by suffering in this world. Um, as though this is outrageous. I've kept all the laws. How how how dare God bring suffering into my life? No, says Peter. Don't be surprised at the fiery ordeal. And I I think he's kind of referencing um Daniel 3 and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, it's that very same word for the fiery furnace. It's it's precisely because of their righteousness that they're going through the the furnace. But verse 13, rejoice in as much as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any kind of criminal or even as a meddler. So he starts big and then he brings it down, you know, um, be righteous in the way that you suffer. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. For it is time for judgment to begin with God's household. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? So it does matter, it does matter what what the unrighteous are like. Verse 18. And if it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? So there is still that category of ungodly, there is still that category of sinner, there is still a nation, uh a world that needs to obey the gospel. But where is the focus for Peter? So then those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful creator and continue to do good. What do you get from that? It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00There is a profound sense of calling people to recognize that you you you can do the very thing that Peter is uh inviting you to do, calling you to do, urging you to do, commanding you to do as an apostle. And yet that does not guarantee that things are going to go well for you. And I think that's important, uh, you know, just to say this before we get to the categories of judgment in the house and how that how that all relates again. But there's there are some, I think, who imagine this whole conversation to be an exercise in some kind of um evangelistic optimism that, well, if we could just get our act together, the whole world would just love us and they would just want to be like us and just want to do these things. If we could just be nice, then the whole world would like us and they would fall in love with Jesus. And if that were the motivation, this would be an erroneous way of thinking about uh the problem that afflicts humanity and the way that the gospel overcomes um simple hearts. That's not what Peter's saying. He actually is very frank about the fact that if you're going to do good, you still might suffer. You very well made. The world hates uh hated Jesus, who was perfect, and therefore it very well might hate you. Uh, that kind of echoes, that that John 15 sentiment is echoing here in 1 Peter 4. He's saying, however, if you're going to suffer, let it be for the good that you do, which I think will have the purpose then of exposing the inconsistency and hostility of one side so that their own deeds are further exposed. So let it be for that kind of goodness that we suffer and not for a gross hypocrisy and inconsistency that leaves the church open to uh charges that defame the name of Jesus, and um, we're not hated for the good that we're doing, but rather for the very bad that we're doing that we really should have addressed, and the our our unwillingness to address it is just compounding the problem uh in the eyes of those who are watching.
SPEAKER_01It's in in so many senses, it's it's easy for me, completely outside of US politics. And for me, who comes both from Australia and the UK, we're not just a two-party system. Um, our politics has not been as uh as caught up with um religion as as uh as in the US. I have no idea how people in my church vote, and they will vote in any number of different ways. I've voted for all three of the major parties in in my lifetime over here in the UK. It's it's just it's just not like that elsewhere. Um but it it's it's a little bit more costly for you, Doug, to take this view, I would have thought, in Richmond, Virginia. What are the reactions to you taking this kind of theological view? Um the culture wars are just so present.
SPEAKER_00It is. We've had um churches that partnered with us at various endeavors withdraw um uh their partnership and support uh because of our refusal to uh come out with a wholehearted, enthusiastic support of Donald Trump and the Republican Party. So even some kind of qualified endorsement of parts of the platform and say, well, I like this, this, this, and this, but I really dislike the whole picture. And I'm not sure I can go there. And I've got deep concerns about the morality of the you know individual and his ability to lead a nation well. And uh, in fact, I'm concerned about hypocrisy because I'm old enough to remember in 1998 when our denomination published a report that said, hey, the morality of a leader matters. The scriptures are clear about this, they can lead whole nations into ruin. And they cited many verses, but they did this in the middle of the presidency of uh the other side, right? A democratic president. And now the same organization has had uh very hearty endorsements from some of its leading figures for someone whose personal morality is as bad or worse than the person they were railing against in 1998. So to that, this is the very thing that we've been talking about all morning, is is this kind of uh of inconsistency leaves us open to a huge charge of hypocrisy. We just want to, we just want to be, we just want to say the are the scales equal? And can we call a spade a spade, even if uh this is a party that maybe traditionally had many issues that the church cared about? What if right now it's not the way God's people should go? And and just even saying that, there's a kind of loyalty where in people's minds uh to be Christian in America means. And then it is often bundled with a set of ideas that uh becomes a dangerous litmus test for uh a person's faith. I even saw a public figure, a pastor whom I deeply respect, has been instrumental in my life, monumentally instrumental in my early years of faith, cutting my teeth on the Bible, so thankful for this man's ministry. And yet, he said every real true believer would vote for Donald Trump this year. And I just thought those are the kinds of statements that the reformers, it made their skin crawl. They would never have made something a test for faith apart from the the ones the scriptures themselves have given us. And that I think uh is is does damage, not only to the church's witness, but to individual disciples, because it teaches them not to think well, to think wisely, to think carefully, to apply consistently the whole counsel of God. But rather it just teaches them to look to uh an organization and to trust that and to think that that's always going to be what's in the church's best interest, and that creates uh a great deal of division in Jesus' body that's uh unhelpful, to say the very least.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So there's all sorts of culture wars going on, and and who knows what's going to happen with this rioting on the streets, who knows what's going to happen in November. Um let's let's imagine from a political point of view that massive instability continues, that even some of the the the weaving of the union itself is unweaved, um, which which would be you know have major, major consequences, um, not only for the states but for the whole world. Even if um those quite cataclysmic events happen, what what is the hope for the church in the US, do you think?
SPEAKER_00My hope uh is that enough uh believers would be fed up with the massive uh uh inconsistencies of both political parties at such a level that they refuse to uh give in to either one. I know this is a pipe dream, this is an idealistic uh hope. Uh but here I stand. You know, I I think about the importance of what it is that we're talking about. The church's mission that spans a nation and across time and just how precious the gospel is and how important it is to get this right, to not let it be entangled in civilian affairs, as Paul says, not in a way that's abstract and otherworldly and has no nothing to say about life in this world. No, far from that. But rather one that has something to say about so much of life in this world that we never could align ourselves uh wholly with one group uh here or one group there, no matter how bad the enemy at the gates might seem. We don't want to align ourselves with an enemy within the walls either. And so I if I would say as Paul does in 1 Corinthians 7, I would that all were as I am and refused to go this route, perhaps voted third party or did a write-in such that the long-term effects was that maybe uh the world began to take notice of this small but growing group of people who say, our Lord is actually different than you think. He's not a red Jesus, he's not a blue Jesus, and he's not some centrist purple Jesus, right? As you said, we're not looking right or left, we're trying to look up. And if sometimes that leads us over here, so be it. And if sometimes it leads us over there, so be it. But the point is, if we go here or there, it's always because we think Jesus is there. And if we can get that message out, uh we'll be okay. And if we can't, well, we may experience some some more chastening in whatever form that takes, uh, some kind of self-made catastrophe. I I don't know. I'm not a prophet or the son of a prophet, but um 2020 is a strange year, and I think a lot of books will be written about it.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, different different books will be yeah, written about different the Lord to bring to bring a revival to uh the the church in America, even if the wrong people were in the White House. Wouldn't that be wouldn't that be just like the Lord?
SPEAKER_00It would be glorious, wouldn't it? He's done that before, it'd be fantastic if he did it again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Well, Doug Ponder, um, if people want to catch up with um more of your wisdom online, where can they go?
SPEAKER_00Uh they could follow me on Twitter, it's where I spend more of my time um at Doug Ponder. Uh and uh I tweet mostly there about uh some of the work that I do with a seminary that we started in Richmond um this past year, Grimke Seminary has a urban school of ministry that focuses on um inner city church planting in America, and then we train other pastors as well, partnering with local churches around uh the country and even around the world. We have a student from Africa who's coming uh where we're trying to put some of the training for pastors back in the hands of local church pastors, bringing some of that apprenticeship in that's so vital that you see the Apostle Paul doing. So I tweet about what we're doing in the school, I tweet about wider things going on in the world and um yeah, just generally get myself into trouble. Not as a meddler, hopefully, first Peter is there. Right, uh, but as someone who deeply believes that the message we have is good news and uh I'd love for more people to hear about it. And if that means sometimes saying something provocative, well, so be it. But let it be provocative for the sake of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01Amen. And I think I think that was uh really, really helpful for us. Not only that thread, but your reflections upon it. And I hope I hope uh life in church and life in uh training other church leaders like yourself really flies for you uh because I think you've got a beautiful gospel to to bring to a needy world. Doug Ponder, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Glenn.
SPEAKER_01Thanks so much for listening. I do hope that you are subscribed to this podcast on whatever is your favorite podcatcher. Do catch up with us on all the socials. We are Speak Life UK on Twitter and on Facebook and on Instagram. And uh if you do want to support uh the work that we do here at Speak Life, uh any gift would be so gladly received. And to those who already give to us, just uh a huge thank you and a debt of gratitude to you. You can go to speaklife.org.uk slash give and support the work that we do here. But until next time, God bless and keep speaking life.